SAN MATEO, Calif., March 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Inbenta (https://www.inbenta.com), the Natural Language search platform powered by Artificial Intelligence, today announced the global availability of its new Hybrid Chat service. This hybrid approach combines Inbenta's self-service Virtual Assistant support with it's on demand Live Chat technology. Now, when a customer is not satisfied with an answer provided by the virtual agent, they can instantly open a conversation with a live agent who will already have the detailed history for a seamless user experience.  

Digital support technologies will be the primary point of contact for customers within the next three years, according to the analyst firm Opus Research. The research group estimates that the Customer Assistants sector represents about two thirds of the total enterprise intelligence assistant market, and is expected to exceed $1 billion in annual spending in 2020 in North America.

"Our research shows that a growing number of customers actually prefer self-service channels to answer questions, resolve issues or complete transactions. Yet, automated handling often hits limitations when it comes to handling complex queries or 'remembering' information previously mentioned in a conversation," says Dan Miller, Opus Research lead analyst. "As intelligent assistant technology evolves; we anticipate the emergence of highly specialized 'intelligent advisors' that know when and how to involve a live agent. Inbenta's Hybrid Chat is the beginning of this progress."

Here's how Hybrid Chat works:

• Using Inbenta's self-service technology, customers seeking support will immediately see an interactive "Help" window appear on the homepage of the company's website.
• Once engaged, the customer is greeted by a customized Virtual Assistant avatar; the avatar can even be programmed to speak questions and responses.
• Customers will begin the conversation by typing their question(s) into the chat box; the virtual assistant will then access the company's knowledge base to find the most relevant answer(s) based on Natural Language Processing.
• If the customer is satisfied, the user closes out of the window and proceeds through their journey; otherwise, they are offered to connect to a live agent.
• The full chat conversation is instantly sent to the responding agent so they can pick up the conversation wherever the Virtual Assistant left off. With this context, there's no need to make the customer repeat themselves and the experience is as efficient as possible.

"As a transactional e-commerce-based company, having a superior digital customer support program is essential. You wouldn't make your brick and mortar customers search your store without helping them, so why not give them a personalized experience virtually," says Andreia Ferreira, Live Chat Manager, Ticketbis. "Having an intelligent virtual assistant at Ticketbis not only means providing a great customer experience, but improving the workflow for our agents. We've seen tremendous growth in our self-service ratio; 86% of incoming queries are now being answered by our FAQ search results."

Unlike other approaches to virtual assistance, Hybrid Chat has the ability to detect whether agents are online or not. Support teams can make real-time changes to the "Help" widget so that customers will either have access to a Virtual Assistant, a Virtual Assistant + Chat, or simply the Chat feature when support teams are unavailable. 

Inbenta customers already using this Hybrid Chat technology include Ticketmaster, Ticketbis, Volotea, and Movistar.

You can learn more about how businesses are harnessing the power of self-service support at the  Intelligent Assistants Conference London, April 26-27th, where Ticketbis and others will showcase their success stories.

About Inbenta:

Inbenta specializes in Natural Language Processing and semantic search to improve the customer experience online through Artificial Intelligence-powered technology that helps businesses increase the efficiency of its customer service, call centers, e-Commerce, FAQs and social media platforms. Support services such as dynamic FAQs, knowledge management and and virtual assistants improve business website searches, customer self-service, and e-Commerce conversions.

With a team of expert linguists assigned to each client to help them understand the root cause of queries and make suggestions on updates to FAQs, Inbenta's products help businesses improve the overall online experience offered to its customers. Inbenta's patented technology has greatly reduced incoming customer service emails and calls to call centers for industry-leading companies including Ticketmaster, CA Technologies and Schlage Locks.

Founded in 2005, Inbenta is headquartered in San Mateo, California with offices in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Chile. Follow Inbenta on Twitter @inbenta, or learn more at www.Inbenta.com.

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SOURCE Inbenta

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